Artefacts has become renowned for the cupboards we put together. Shutters, double doors, casement windows - all fodder for reworking into a piece suitable for your best china, your collection of Elvis figurines, your naughty magazines. Only your imagination can stop us!

Laura's Vanity & Mirror

Just finished, Laura's vanity and mirror are made from hemlock granary board and "rusted" tin.

The boards were soft sanded, stained and finished with a satin varnish so that they're lovely to touch and clean but still textured for that touchy feely moment.

The mirror

Hemlock Vanity

Just finished, this little piece is made from 1" hemlock boards taken from a local barn. The lumber was cleaned and soft sanded to retain its original texture. Only the vessel sink is missing.

Pantry Cupboard

This is a biggie - roughly 8' high by 10' wide and made to order.

The bulk of the facing material is salvaged pine flooring, 1890s tin ceiling panels and carved elements from a Romanian entrance.

The complete cupboard in place.

Cornice detail on the upper level.

Paint work designed to convey an antique European Schrank.

Tin ceiling for the door panels.

A Wall of Work

Scott stands beside the above series of cabinets that will be joined to form a pantry 10' wide x 8" high. He has much painting to do.

Old tin ceiling panels are framed with salvaged pine and carved elements to form a whole new creation.

Office Cupboard

The piece is based on a pair of carved Romanian doors we picked up years ago.

The heavily carved panels and oversized trim give the piece it's visual weight

We built the neoclassical cornice to add an element of sophistication which anchors the drama - you know how these cupboards can get away from you!

Adjustable shelving on the inside allows for organization - or lack of it, depending on your home office skills.

We left the many coats of paint and worked our finish overtop - because it looks so good.

Birch Bark Vanity

Our most recent cupboard features a body of salvaged, 1830s pine, a old barn flooring top and birch bark from the client's cottage.

Wine Cabinet

By request, we built this cabinet to store copious amounts of wine necessary for one evening's entertainment (big drinkers, I'm told).

The doors are windows we brought in from Romania, the top is pine flooring from a local barn. We left the crack on purpose but added a butterfly key to stabilize it.

This piece is a good example of bringing together disparate elements to create something wholly unique.

Vanities

The cabinets to the left and right ended up in a cottage up north - they wanted something rustic so we used barn board for the body, birch bark for the drawer fronts and the skins sliced off of barn beams for the door panels.

Neat.

The wood on top is joist material from a church in Woodstock, ON. It's finished with lacquer.

The wood of the body was left raw because the customer was going to paint it.

Bathroom vanity

This one's not so recent but it's a good example of a few we have made lately.

The customer provided us with the sink - whoa, heavy - and we built around it using all salvaged pine.

The interior spaces are clean and easily accessible.

Traditional and modern at the same time!

Custom Cabinet

We recently finished and delivered this oversize cabinet to a cottage in the Muskokas. The doors came from Romania but the rest of the cabinet is local old growth pine and salvaged trim. This one-of-a-kind piece will never be repeated but there are any number of other parts to work with. What have you got in mind?

China Cabinet

We started with a pair of sidelights, split a door in half for the sides and went from there... . This one has sold but was priced around $2100.

We found this original corner cupboard in Prescott, Ontario. Once a built in, it dates from the 1820s and is made of cherry. For years it has graced our office and many have fallen under its spell. In fact, we've built at least 4 cupboards based on this design.

To keep the cost down, the trick is to find as many original pieces as possible to put together. However, this is not necessary. If a cupboard must be built, we will start from scratch.

Below you will find a series of images of a replica we built for a customer who wished to finish the piece herself (she wanted a red finish)

The carcass was built to the specific size the customer requested using paint grade wood as the end coat will be paint.

Original casement windows from Quebec (c1830s) were found but the lower doors had to be made.

Pilasters of antique trim were applied and the developed cornice was added giving the piece a more complete look.

Because the finish was to be rubbed back as a distress, the piece was stained to effect age. Finally, a rubbed coat of deep red was applied.

A pair of casement windows and 4 shutter panels cover the openings.

Inside, the television cavity remains open while the component areas are covered by secondary doors.

The piece is in an unfinished state and will be painted inside and out to order.

Built in two pieces, top and bottom, this cupboard will be easy to maneuver.

This shot shows the style and drama of the original door grill with its long sweeping lines.

We recently acquired these fabulous carved doors from Egypt. They are thick, heavy and full of character. We decided to build a cupboard from one with iron the first time we saw the piece.

We used old flooring for the body and trim and capped it of with some cornice an dentil we had from a previous demolition.

Here is Scott with a smaller cabinet fabricated using a pair of windows in a jamb from Romania (c1880). Some of the trim is salvage from local homes but the rest of the body is new wood.

Here is the same piece finished and cleaned up. It now sits in a pool house bathroom with towels behind the glass.

This rough looking beast began as a pair of paneled reveals (the trim inside a door jamb) from north of Toronto and two oak pilasters from Philadelphia.

Here you can see it has cleaned up well and has a strikingly classical look. Since the antique pieces were cleaned but not stripped, texture was added to the new wood to give it the same feel once the piece was finished.

Below you will see some more examples of cupboards we have built, some of which are available for sale at the moment.

A little cupboard made from a cupboard door (Sold)

Made from a pair of paneled shutters from Philadelphia (c1830) - Sold

Paneled shutters from outside of Boston, MA are the basis for this piece - Sold

A classic look from a pair of interior shutters brought to us from Hamilton Sold

You can finish this piece put together with some Romanian cupboard doors and local trim.

Sold

This Italianate sidelight piece features pilasters from a house struck by a tornado.

Sold